“Cats can be trained as well as dogs,” said Kokes, who runs a unique new cat behavioral training program at the society.

So why haven’t we heard much about cat training before?

“Cats have done well at training us,” said Kokes, who came to the society recently from the Denver Dumb Friends League. “Cats manipulate the situation.”

Her trainng program seeks much more than teaching felines how to do tricks, however.

It aims to socialize kittens with people and to cure annoying bad habits of adult cats that make the animals less likely to stick in good homes. And that’s important since cats have surpassed the number of dogs in American households

The Boulder society is able to offer such a program because it has the expertise and physical resources that many other shelters don’t, Kokes said. It can care for and shelter the cats longer.

One phase of the program helps socialize feral kittens. It uses “classical” conditioning, such as that pioneered by the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov. In his research, Pavlov noted that dogs drooled when food was offered to them. Oddly, they continued to drool when researchers showed up without any food.

Pavlov eventually concluded that the dogs were reacting to the white lab jackets the reseachers wore. They associated the white jackets with getting fed, and reacted.

In the Boulder program, people bring items such as food or toys to sessions with kittens. The cats thus learn to associate people with something pleasant.

A cat without this sort of socialization can be fearful and aggressive, Kokes said. That makes the animal less likely to be adopted.

“Another unique part of our program is post-adoptive support,” Kokes said. The trainers follow up by phone or e-mail and offer additional brhavioral help if needed.

The second part of the Boulder society’s program is for adult cats that have a history of house soiling. That’s the number one cat behaviorial problem, Kokes said. followed by poor cat/cat interactions, excessive vocalization, scratching objects and being trained to use a harness.

The society offers behavior[3] consultations to the general public via telephone or visits to homes, she added.

More than half of all Americans are pet owners, reports an article on Investopedia.com. With more than 72 million dogs and 81 million cats in the United States, some 37 percent of households include a dog and 32 percent have at least one cat, according to the 2007 U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographic Sourcebook. Americans spent an estimated $43.2 billion on their pets in 2008.

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Saturday is the finale of the Furry Friends Food Drive, a community effort to help financially struggling metro area residents take care of their pets and not have to give them up to shelters. Volunteers wii be collecting food for all sorts of small animals (including dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and gerbils), as well as money donations, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at South High School, 1700 E Louisiana Ave., Denver (south of Washington Park). The food eventually will be distributed by the Food Bank of the Rockies.

Donations also are being accepted all this week at Mike Shaw auto dealerships and at the following animal clinics: